South Korea: Will President Park’s 25-year sentence hold?

Samsung headquarters in Seoul

On the South Korea corruption front, the news keeps outdoing itself.

As we’ve noted before, the South Korean economy is dominated by a handful of conglomerates known as chaebols, all of them run by powerful and famous families. Over the decades, members of these families have been caught committing massive acts of corruption. They used to get away with it, usually, because the chaebols were viewed as having lifted South Korea up into the ranks of first-world nations and the families that ran them were objects of near-reverence. In recent times, however, South Koreans have increasingly viewed the chaebols as a hindrance to further economic growth, and as a result have been less tolerant of corruption on the part of their celebrated bosses.

Park Geun-hye

On this site we’ve been following the biggest corruption scandal in South Korean history. Over the past couple of years, investigators have been probing interactions between Samsung, the largest of the chaebols, and Park Geun-hye, who was president from February 2013 to March 2017. Those investigators eventually found that a close friend of Park, Choi Soon-sil, had taken a huge sum of money from Samsung in exchange for permission from Park to merge two of Samsung’s subsidiaries.

Lee Jae-yong (aka Jay Y. Lee)

The consequences of these findings have been dramatic. A quick round-up: in February 2017, prosecutors arrested Samsung’s de facto head, Lee Jae-yong, known in the West as Jay Y. Lee. In March 2017, Park was removed from office and replaced with Moon Jae-in, who promised the South Korean people that he would take action to limit the power of the chaebols. Alas, this is the oldst promise in South Korean politics. Presidents are always saying that they’ll rein in the chaebols, and they never do. In the same way, the CEOs of chaebols are always being arrested on charges of bribery, embezzlement, and the like, only to go free after little or no time in jail.

And that’s what happened to Jay Y. Lee. Last August, after a five-month trial on a range of charges, he was found guilty of everything and was sentenced to five years behind bars. This past February, however, without any warning, a judge sprung him from prison, providing an utterly absurd excuse for doing so.

To many South Koreans, this stunning move – this instant unraveling of justice – seemed to spell an end to any hopes of real reform.

Choi Soon-sil

Is there any possibility that South Korean authorities will do anything to suggest that they’re serious about tackling chaebol corruption? Look at the case of former President Park, who’s been in jail since last year. This past April, a lower court sentenced Park to 24 years and $16 million in fines for bribery, extortion, abuse of power, and other charges. In late August, a higher court, noting that she’d taken even more cash from Samsung than previously believed, bumped her sentence up to 25 years and $18 million. On the same day, her friend Choi was given a 20-year sentence. Meanwhile, in two additional trials that concluded in July, Park was sentenced to a total of eight more years in jail for breaking election laws and illegally spending government money.

Will these sentences hold? Or will Park and Choi be dealt the same get-out-of-jail-free card that Jay Y. Lee was handed? Stay tuned. In the weeks to come, we’re going to be giving these high-level hijinks the closer scrutiny they deserve.